Digging for Our Roots, Part 2: Chicago, Illinois

29 Aug 2013

The Chicago Marriott O’Hare is a large and very nice hotel near the airport. In the three years we have been doing our travel trailer road trips, this is the first time we have taken a break from the trailer and stayed in a hotel. Kind of different. Nice to get taken care of for a change. Had a bit of a problem with the trailer, though. By the 3^rd day sitting in the parking lot, the batteries were pretty low which caused the refrigerator to turn off (even though it was running on propane.) So Russ brought the van around to where the trailer was parked and charged the batteries. Unfortunately that didn’t keep them going until we got to South Bend, and as a result, the refrigerator was not cold when we got to the campground. All was not bad though. We didn’t have much in the refrig and the freezer part stayed frozen. Once we got the refrig reset, it cooled off and everything got back to normal.

The primary reason we were in Chicago was to get in a visit with Chris, so we didn’t do a lot of sightseeing. We did spend one day at the Chicago public library and the Cultural Center based on Chris’ recommendation. Both buildings are beautiful. The Cultural Center is the old public library which was replaced in the early 1990s by the new nine story library. I remember a story we were told on one of our previous Chicago boat tours that when the great Chicago fire happened in the 1870s, the original library burned to the ground. Queen Victoria and others from England sent over 8,000 books to help restart the library. The library was rebuilt on land donated by the Grand Army of the Republic, a Civil War veterans group.

We took the opportunity and went to a movie. Saw The Butler on the 50^th anniversary of MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech. This is a powerful movie is based VERY loosely on a real life story of one of the White House’s butlers and provides several different perspectives of the civil rights movement. For dinner, we went to a German hofbrau restaurant with a live umpah band. Reminded me of a much tamer version of the one we visited in Munich years ago.

We got to see Chris’ new apartment Monday night. We brought over Gino East pizza (the delicious traditional deep dish Chicago pizza) and had a very nice visit. He is now living in a studio apartment just about two blocks from where he used to live. Wednesday night, we picked Chris up after work to go to the Navy pier to have dinner and see the fireworks. We had a great dinner at Bubba Gumps, but unfortunately, the fog came in and the fireworks was pretty much not visible. Lots of pretty red, blue and green clouds though. I had originally been thinking of taking one of the fireworks display cruises on the lake – good thing I didn’t. That would have been a big disappointment.

We leave tomorrow for South Bend.

Chicago Municipal Public Library built in the early 1990s.

The gargoyles on top are actually owls surrounded by leaves.

The top floor is like a garden conservatory. There are beautiful rooms available for events. I thought this would be a wonderful place for a wedding reception.

This zip bikes are all over the city. Once you are signed up, you can pull one out, ride it to a zip bike rack near your destination and leave it there. Pretty convenient way to run errands on lunch break or to do some commuting in the city.